


Cabinet of Curiosities

by LadyRosarium, ScoracleTrash



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Batman - Fandom, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Addams Family References, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universes, F/M, Lima Syndrome, One-Sided Relationship, Revenge, Stockholm Syndrome, Strange Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8964151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRosarium/pseuds/LadyRosarium, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoracleTrash/pseuds/ScoracleTrash
Summary: Creepy, mysterious, romantic, beautifully macabre. An eclectic museum of the strange and sublime relationship between Jonathan Crane and Barbara Gordon.





	1. Grave

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, one and all, to Cabinet of Curiosities. Step right up and bear witness to something weird and wonderful, something that will keep you coming back for more. A labor of love set across several universes and realities, all of which contain romance, intrigue, and dark desires. Why not stay a while? The doctor and his assistant will be in soon.

The cemetery was calm, quiet, completely solemn.

It was the perfect place for a romantic midnight stroll. Just them, walking among the graves and mausoleums.

They silently tread the worn paths, their feet making barely a sound as they passed overgrown grass. Like moths to flame they were drawn to a small stone bench. They sat in silence, admiring the night,

Across from them Barbara saw a large tombstone, the large letters proclaiming the names of the old couple that lie beneath it. She took one of his hands in hers, "someday we'll be buried here...six feet under, side by side in the same coffin, our lifeless bodies rotting together for all of eternity, and no one can tear us apart."

The way he looked at her when she said that, the delight in his eyes. His expression then turned wicked as he moved closer to her, close enough to let the severed threads around his lips to graze her cheek, “shall the lining be velvet or silk?”  

“Anything but burlap, honey.”


	2. Coma

He’s not coming out of it. The doctors are clear that there is little chance he ever would. 

His body is just too frail, too abused, it’s frankly a miracle he didn’t die. Barbara doesn’t feel like it’s a miracle. 

She’s at his bedside, holding his cold hand and watching the machines surrounding him, breathing for him. It’s cold, sterile, artificial, wrong. 

This is wrong. It would have been better if he died. 

“Ms. Gordon?” 

“Yes?”

“Could you please come here for a moment?” 

It takes a few seconds to get up and leave him, reluctantly letting him go. Once outside the doctor levels it with her: he’s permanently brain damaged, his organs are failing, the people are demanding that he pay the price for all that he’s inflicted upon Gotham. 

No killing is ever justified. 

It rings through her head like chapel bells (the irony is not lost on her), yet she knows it would be the kindest thing. It would be what he wanted. 

“Please,” she says, “please take him off life support.” 

“And how should the body be disposed of?”

Disposed of. She almost snarls at the wording. He’s not trash to be thrown away—he may be a monster, but he is—was—her monster. 

“Cremation.” 

She wants his ashes close to her. 

The doctor turns off the machines as she holds his hands tightly. He breathes on his own for a few moments, and as slowly as the sun rises, he fades away gently without resistance. 

The doctors call it; they cover him with the white sheet and roll his bed out of the room. 

From her desk the urn containing the remains of her lover never leaves.


	3. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank scoracletrash for writing this one. A partner in crime if there ever was one.

"It is literally twenty-nine degrees outside," Barbara said with her arms crossed in the kitchen of her clock tower. 

"Your point being?" 

"My point being that now is not the time to be making iced tea. Now is the time for hot tea, maybe with a little honey and lemon."

"You're absolutely free to drink hot tea, but I am working. And work requires iced tea."

He began to pour sugar into a measuring cup. 

"What are you doing with that? Holy crap, that's half the bag!"

He raised his eyebrow as he turned to her, "Again, you don't have to drink any of it."

"Okay, but how do you not have diabetes, if you drink this every time you work?"

He dumped the sugar into the brewing tea, "Good genes, I suppose."

"I don't know if I'll ever understand sweet tea. How do you even taste the tea?"

"It's actually quite good. The tea and the sugar form something of a tea-flavored syrup."

"Syrup. You're drinking syrup. Okay, then," she shook her head and placed her hand on his shoulder, "I love you, even if you Georgians are weird."

"And I love you," he said as he kissed her cheek, "Even if you don't see the merits of sweet tea in winter."

"Once again, Jonathan, you are so weird," she giggled, and with that she picked up her coffee cup and made her way back to the sofa. 

Silly girl, he thought to himself with a smile as he set the tea aside to chill. Tea had no season.


	4. Created

Without even meaning to, she created a monster. Barbara never meant for it to go so horribly…right? Wrong? Even she was unsure. One thing was certain, thought: she gave Jonathan Crane a taste of sex, and now he couldn’t get enough.

His first time was him on his back, her on top, riding him slowly until he begged her to move her hips faster. In the dead of night, she listened to him pant and groan and completely lose himself in the act.

A few days later he pulled her into a storage closet and ground against her until he had to change his pants.

The next night he showed up to her apartment, unannounced, and made quick work of conquering her willing flesh. What had held back his sexual charisma had clearly dissolved away as if it weren't there at all. Barbara felt his passion in her bruised lips and quickly bruising back as it collided with the wall, hips held in place by Jonathan's eager hands, her legs wrapped firmly around his waist. Even when sated, he didn't retreat; with a firm press of his lips to her forehead, he silently pleaded—perhaps demanded?— _let me stay._

He stayed over that night and even made her some breakfast.

Another time he had her bent over a desk in his office. That same week he called her and whispered wonderfully filthy things to her, demanding that she touch herself all the while. 

She created a monster, yes, but one she was more than happy to comply with.


	5. Hold

He slept better with Barbara next to him. He chided himself for having such a childish need (because that’s what it was; he could sleep just as well without her.)

(well, not really.) 

Jonathan turned over to look at her still, sleeping form. She was facing him, a few loose strands of her red hair in front of her face, her long lashes elegantly draped on her cheek. 

He shifted closer and let his long arms and legs cocoon themselves around her, pulling her close and relishing in her warmth. 

They stayed that way until the dawn.


	6. Shackles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written by ScoracleTrash.

“I know you know what you’re doing to me.”

“Do I, now?”

That smile of hers, so dark when she wanted it to be, painted itself across her features.

“Oh, yes. You know exactly what you’re doing to me.”

“And what am I doing to you?”

Suddenly, one of the most infamous monologue-deliverers of the Rogue’s Gallery had nothing to say. There weren’t words in the language to describe the sensation of being on his back. Crane, the nearly asexual, drowning in desire. Suddenly helpless.

“Just do it,” he said, “It doesn’t matter what it is.”

“If you insist.”


	7. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank scoracletrash for this one.

Cold sweat covered him almost every time he jerked awake in the middle of the night. Sometimes his dreams were childhood memories, full of the terror of a child. Sometimes they were more recent, and full of adult fears. But whatever their subject, and however they came, they were a nightly occurrence for him. 

Or, at least, they had been. He was actually caught quite off guard by this one, as it was the first he had experienced in months. Since his release, in fact. Since he had started sleeping next to her...

She was awake. Damn. She was sitting up on her elbow, her head tilted in concern, her red hair spilling all over her shoulder and her pillow. 

"Jonathan...is everything alright?"

"It's fine, it's nothing. A bad dream." He leaned forward, placing his arms on his legs. 

"Come here," she said, pulling him down, back into the blankets. Her grip with firm, she was insistent, and he didn't have the mind to fight her. 

He allowed her to lay him down, did nothing but stiffen as she began to wrap around him, her fingertips sliding gently across his chest, back and forth. He let out a ragged breath. 

"The aviary," was all he said. 

Her grip on him tightened. 

He was tired, and the sensation of her body warm against him made his muscles relax and settle into the mattress. It wasn't long before he was sitting in that twilight between awake and asleep, half-dreaming. At least it was all nonsense this time. Talking toasters. 

He didn't notice that her eyes were open, that they remained open and watchful for any sign of trouble, until long after he had drifted off to sleep.


	8. Nightmare

“This is her?” 

“Indeed it is,” he rubbed the pads of his fingers under the raven’s beak, “this is Nightmare.”

“She’s beautiful,” and it was true: her lover’s longtime companion had the most beautiful ink colored feathers, her eyes were sharp and glimmered with intelligence. She curiously hopped onto Barbara’s forearm and cocked her head. 

“How’d you get over your fear of birds?” It was a cautiously asked question; she knew of how his dear sweet Granny tortured him, how he would be punished for anything and everything she deemed fit. 

Jon didn’t flinch. “Self-induced exposure therapy, and lots of it. I fed Nightmare a few times on a whim, and before long she found me to be an agreeable perch. And now, she has found you to be the same.”

The corvid looked back at him, he nodded, and she seemed much more at ease. Barbara reached up and pet the top of her head, softly, only for Nightmare to fly back onto Jon’s shoulder. 

“Don’t take it personally; she can be quite mercurial.” 

“No offense taken.” 

After that first meeting, she found herself being in the target of Nightmare’s harmless stalking. Mornings would come and she would see a raven sitting patiently at her windowsill. Other times she would be reading in the park and would be in the pleasant company of an intrigued corvid. One could imagine Barbara’s joy when Nightmare decided to take their relationship to the next level and claim her shoulder as her next roost. 

Seriously, having a raven sit on her shoulder while she worked (or did anything else, really) made her look even more of a badass.


	9. Bitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written by scoracletrash

Midnight. The day had just begun, according to the clock. 

He was grateful for the thick walls and ceilings in the clock tower. He could go down to the boiler room and play there, at all hours of the night, and she was never disturbed. 

He had actually lost track of the year since he had done it, since he had locked that vile excuse for a woman in the aviary and let her enjoy the fruits of her crow training herself. Just thinking of her he could taste bile on the back of his tongue. 

He sawed his bow across the strings of the antique fiddle he had carried with him since his youth, producing high-pitched scraping noises few would find beautiful. But to him, there was beauty in the dissonance, in the screams. 

Screams were always beautiful, whether they came from throats or constructed instruments. 

On a day like today, he would probably play until Barbara came down and insisted he eat something. Two years ago, he would've played through his hunger until he collapsed. 

Not that he disliked having her around, but that had been a peculiar kind of ecstasy that he missed, even if it had been replaced with other raptures. 

He supposed that was the only thing he felt he had really lost, when he took on a lover, a partner. 

The freedom to self-destruct.


	10. Soothe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written by scoracletrash

"How badly does it hurt?"

His head slowly turned to face her, and his eyes followed a moment later. He sighed, or was it a scoff?

"Badly enough."

"O...kay," she said, offering him a clean sock, "Bite down on this."

"I am not biting down on a sock, Barbara."

"Okay, fine," she put one hand on her hip, "Then just grit your teeth. Ready? Three. Two. One."

She grabbed ahold of the batarang sticking out of his back and yanked hard, pulling it out of his skin.

"Fuck!" snarled the man who never lost control of his language. 

"I'm sorry," she said, placing her hand over the cut, "It doesn't look too bad. It should heal on its own if we keep up with the dressing."

"It's not my first."

She ran her hand gently along his back, along a lifetime of scars that marred the pale skin, along the bones that never stopped jutting out, no matter how well she made sure he was fed. 

"Are you going to be alright?" she asked as she cleaned the wound. 

He hissed and clenched his teeth, "I'll be fine. I barely feel it anymore, I promise."

She covered the cut and secured the dressing, wrapping her arms around his starveling ribs and laying her head on his shoulder. It took him a moment to relax into her, but when he did, though she couldn't see it, he smiled.

"Thank you."


	11. Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written by scoracletrash

Beautiful to witness…that’s what he had said.

It started like pure speed, epinephrine to the heart. Her eyes grew wide as a cat’s, her blood began to rush in her ears, pounding against her eardrums. Every hair on her body stood on end, her skin creeping up into goose-flesh.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

“Alive.”

It was just a baby’s dosage. Barely enough to mess with her perception of size, barely enough to conjure an ocean of snakes at her feet, climbing up her legs, hissing as they went.

She laughed. She actually laughed.

She loved it.


	12. Intent

Barbara was going to leave him. The only woman who he would ever trust—love—was about to end their relationship. 

It wasn’t paranoia driving the conclusion; he overheard his paramour talking, at length, to a raven-haired colleague about their relationship. Specifically, how she was scared, how he made her feel so many things, how exhilarating it was to be with someone so intelligent it took her breath away, how exhausting it was to have a man who felt so deeply and who could never heal from his trauma. 

He was exhilarating and exhausting and she wanted to breathe again. 

Over his dead body. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She was supposed to love him unconditionally, without any cares or worries or fears. 

Barbara invited him to dinner at her place over text (how impersonal), where she would undoubtedly make her intentions known. Very well, so would he. 

Six bullets. More than enough. Five for her, one for him. 

There was no hint of hesitance or second thoughts as he made his way into her apartment, not even when he saw her at the table, two plates set out for them and a casserole fresh from the oven to talk over. 

She didn’t wheel herself over to greet him, but she did smile weakly when he came into the kitchen. Barbara pulled a chair out next to her, one he didn’t bother to take. 

“Jonathan, please sit. We need to have a talk about us.” 

“Yes,” he hissed, drawing the hammer of the gun behind his back, “yes, we do.”


	13. Rhyme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who wants some Salecrow?

“Georgie, porgie, pudding and pie…” his impossibly long fingers caressed her cheek as he crooned softly. She leaned closer, tilted her head just enough to feel the dry, scratchy feeling of his lips on hers. 

“…kiss the Batgirl and make her cry,” 

And she let him do so, again and again, until she could barely breathe. The late summer wind blew comfortably around them, her cape swaying with the breeze. 

She saw his eyes dart to the sky behind her, lingering for too long, and out of curiosity cast a backwards glance. The Bat-symbol, projected high over the cityscape, 

That was their cue to go their separate ways. 

He ran off before she turned back to face him, gone so quickly it was like he was never there to begin with. 

She laughed and glided off into the moonlight. “See you next time, Scarecrow.”


End file.
